Captain's Log 28: Man The Harpoons!

Well, it’s been a few weeks since ATLAS 1.5 went live and we’re pleased with the progress thus far. Thank you again for all of the support and feedback - especially during the PTR and beyond.

This Captain’s Log comes straight off the back of today’s Livestream and we’d like to offer a recap for those who may have missed it. The purpose of the Livestream was to answer questions asked by the Community and to discuss some of the things you care about along with showing off our upcoming content slated for the May mega-patch. We collated questions on our Community Hub, but, in the interest of time, we focused on answering a few big topic ones initially. We will be pulling more from the community’s responses and addressing those throughout more Captain’s Log and general outreach on social and our community hub.

If you didn’t have a chance to watch the steam, worry not as you can check out the entire VOD here!

Livestream Recap!

Before we begin going through the content in the mega update, we want to cover some topics that frequently came up in our Q&A thread. Please keep in mind that we’re not going to be able to cover everything, however, we will be looking over the thread at your suggestions, feedback, and try to cover more in the coming weeks through these logs and additions to our patch.

Will there be a wipe with this Mega Update?

No. We have no plans to wipe the networks with the next mega update. The game is in Early Access and we don’t want to be afraid to make big changes for the betterment of the game in the long-run, but we balance that with the time you guys have invested and the feedback you’ve provided. Adding new content, including exploring areas doesn’t necessarily mean that a wipe will be necessary. The last mega update required a wipe as we were making some grand changes to the core game like claiming and ownership of islands, and we look at that type of situation as an extreme case which would advance the game’s development.

Does ATLAS have lore, do you guys plan to explore on that through quests or other means?

The world of ATLAS has a history and lore that we are building through the environments and things like discovery zones and notes. We’re handling this similarly to the early days of ARK, where the lore was sprinkled in but none of the dots could really be connected. Over the course of development, as we solidify our game mechanics and technical features, you might start to see more of this lore introduced into the world in various ways that ties everything together. We have some really fun stuff planned for the future in terms of quest lines and world building.

What’s planned for the state of Piracy as an action?

We know this is a question that has been raised a lot, and especially recently with this update’s reveal of content that may not be as pirate focused as some would like. We are interested in how these various pieces of content play out and it’s important to state that what is in the current game may not be in the ultimate game. This means we’re going to try different things and experiment a lot, especially throughout early access. Over the weeks and months ahead, the game will continue to evolve as we sail towards our goal of making the most fun pirate fantasy game, as opposed to the most realistic pirate game. On that note, this upcoming mega patch does introduce a fair bit of content related to seafaring and the pirate playstyle, and we’ll continue to look into ways we can further establish this via new multidimensional gameplay mechanics as well as rebalancing and tweaking existing systems.

Where is the Pirate Hat cosmetic from playing pre-1.5?

It’s coming! Between addressing bugs and server performance along with working on the mega patch, it kinda got stuck in our pipeline! Yes, we will give you all your fancy hats soon, sorry for the wait.

XBOX?

We’re going to have some very exciting Xbox news for you in the coming months. We’re thrilled to have you aboard, our plans haven’t changed and can’t wait to bring it to you this year. Stay tuned!

And now...onto the update itself!

Unlike the last Mega Patch, this one is more content focused and less systemic. We still plan to make more systemic changes, however, we want to give our previous changes some time to settle, so we can see how they play out and decide what steps we’d like to take next. That means this for this patch, we’ll be introducing some new weapons/combat related items for players and ships, structures, items to generally improve QOL, cosmetics, creatures, and an explorable area, the Ice Dungeon!

Similarly to our other skins, these will be purchasable at your local Freeport.

It’ll be the first time we’ll have skinned a steering wheel, and it’s applied by accessing it’s inventory and equipping it in the skin slot. The skins will be able to be painted and we plan to have many more exotic wheel skins in the future.

New Offensive Structure: Torpedo Launcher (and torpedoes!)

Torpedo Launchers are a new Golden Age ruin item which allows crew and captains to fire torpedos at their targets. The launcher must be snapped to a Gunport location and can be used manually or via the Captain’s Firing mode. Shooting a torpedo at or above the water’s surface will make it follow that path on the surface, and angling it downwards will have it follow that trajectory, like a missile. We can assure you that we are aware of the ways in which Torpedo’s could be problematic in terms of the meta and we’ll be keeping a close eye on their balance.

New Boat Attachment: Cargo Racks!

A new storage option for medium and large boats. The cargo rack is snapped to dingy hangar locations and will significantly reduce the weight of any item inside of its inventory. The cargo rack can only be accessed when the boat has anchored, and if the boat is sunk, the cargo rack will turn into a special-flotsam which contains the inventory floating out at sea, providing the potential for it to be stolen by another pirate crew!

New Cart Attachment: Large Storage Box!

Cargo Carts now own up to their namesake and can carry additional cargo! Attach a large storage chest to a cargo cart will automatically reduce the weight of the items (this effect will be disabled on ships), to help players transport resources more easily on land.

New Tool: Fishing Net!

Pleasantly pass the time at sea on long journeys, as you cast your new fishing net to satisfy your hunger and deepen your pockets!

New Ballista Ammo Type: Boat Harpoon

Stop your fleeing enemies in their tracks and reel them in with the new Boat Ballista Harpoon! Load up your ballistic and fire the projectile, if it successfully attaches you and your target will be unable to move. Reel them in before they destroy the harpoon. You can only successfully harpoon same-or-smaller ship classes.

New Weapon: Spear Gun!

With a highly accurate piercing projectile, a rapid reload rate, and the ability to reuse ammo
the Spear Gun is the best choice for your underwater weaponry!

New Creature: Olfend

This quirky looking creature narrowly avoided being burdened with the moniker: the Camelephant. The unique Olfend possesses some utilitarian attributes based around water. Water can be collected as you ride it across fertile land or by drinking from lakes and the considerate Olfend will store it, distribute it amongst water containers or...spit it in a friend’s eye. The delicately-legged creature also has the potential to be more heroic than it may appear by being put to use in extinguishing fires.

New Creature: Giant Tortugar

We’re pretty fond of this creature and the aspects it can bring to player’s experience of the game. In some ways the Tortuga acts like an armoured personnel carrier and, in others, it is similar to an organic submarine. Nestle under its’ sectioned shell for protection or stay sheltered as it plunges into the depths and affords its passengers reduced oxygen consumption.

New Level: Ice Dungeon

An enormous dungeon found deep in the depths of the polar region. We can see that this was clearly once occupied by pathfinders but now deserted. Rumour has it that they were slaughtered or their fear of a legendary and elusive mythical beast steered them away.

Additional Mega-Patch Notes!

New Weapon: Crossbow

New Structure: 3x4 Medium Gates

New Structure: Ice Box - a high-insulation box for transporting ice. Has “active” mode that will drain ice but reduce surrounding temperature (reverse fire). Consumes less ice if “indoors”. Extends spoil time of things inside, but greatly extends the storage time of ice. Also has an option to turn ice into water to consume.

New Resource: Ice - Must be harvested from cold zones. Decays relatively quickly if not in “insulated” storage. Can be consumed to reduce temperature for a short duration (15s per ice cube, max of 5 mins). Relatively heavy.

New Feature: Company-wide map markers

New Feat: Instant Hotbar Equip

QOL: Structure Weights now displayed on items

QOL: Revamped Skill Tree UI

QOL: Breeding Temperature Gate adjustments

QOL: Faster Reload skills now also scale the corresponding equip time

With more notes still to come!

ISO: BLACKWOOD

Prepare for a dark twist on the Equatorial biome with ISO Blackwood. Dark jungles, caves, alcoves, villages, homes, and farms, an interesting array of animals and a new concept; The Mire. Wade through thick green waters teeming with dangerous creatures, rare plant life, and the occasional Gorgon to find buried treasure, lost corpses and even the giant and ancient snake boss Anacython.

In early June we expect to be able to release our special mod-map, Blackwood, created by Iso, the level designer behind ARK’s popular mod-map Crystal Isles. This is not something we’ll be supporting specifically on our Official Network, as it was designed and intended to be used for single servers an example of a stunning mod map that can be hosted unofficially. This specific map will be set up so that you can still enjoy all the mechanics that ATLAS has to offer, whilst hosting it as a standalone server with no additional database setup required!

Latest Patch Notes

CURRENT V103.0
- Player Shops only cost upkeep on Non-Lawless PvE-style Homeservers. (Technically in Official PvP too, but only on the non-lawless homeservers that are effectively PvE regions)
- Servers can use this server config value to scale the player shop upkeep:
Game.ini:
[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]
PlayerShopGoldUpkeepMultiplier=0.08
Default value is 0.08, for a 92% reduction from the previous rate.
- Player Shops are now limited to 70 slots
- You are now allowed to build more than one player shop per team on an official homeserver, now you can build as many as you want to pay the upkeep for.
- War Declaration cost has been reduced to 40k gold and 500 of each additional material, rather than 1000.
- Ability to respawn on your current server when you die on a lawless/freeport server that isn't set to be your home server.
- Water creatures will no longer lose their targets close to the water surface.
- Magic Mythos is now enabled on Official Servers: bonus 2x Harvest, XP, Taming, and Gold rates for the weekend.
v102.62
- Fixed a client-side crash
v102.61
- Optimizations for creature food consumption and structure tagging
v102.5
- Fixed some rare crashes.
- Stationed NPCs (on boats and land) no longer take damage from guns on Official Servers.
- Added a new Game.ini ShooterGameMode config bool: bSeatedNPCIgnoreGunDamage=1
v102.47
- You can now reveal unconscious targets contesting your own claimflag (pinwheel option activated on your claimflag)
v102.46
- Magic Mythos is now enabled on Official Servers: bonus 2x Harvest, XP, Taming, and Gold rates for the weekend.

Complete Patch Notes:

Show 'n tell #7

We’re still collecting entries for the Show ‘n Tell! So you have a little longer to astound us with your creations, be they your fleets, building designs, imaginative tatts, entertaining videos, original fan art or scenic screenshots. Don’t be shy and head to the submission thread for a chance to win some booty in the form of a cash prize!

Alrighty, that’s it for this post. Thank you so much for becoming a part of our crew and we can't wait to show all you scallywags, landlubbers, captains, and seadogs what lies ahead on the horizon!

Happy Sailing,

Grapeshot Games

‍For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information ‍

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Hooks to stop ships is not wanted. I have never seen that in ship combat of the time and I would not like to see it in this game. Even more tame is not good. People shall only be allowed to have horses no other tames, its ridiculous. A good game is not crafted by making alot of stuff like this, I am sad. This is the best game ever, I have played em all since 1999. Unfotunatly it was at its best just the weeks after release, and after that its downhill. Everything getting easier and more abundant and less fun. Work on the technical problems, but dont listen to when people want everything easier. Listening to that kills games.

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Please give ship planks way more initial HP especially with more and more weapons that are solely for destroying planks. (of course with more HP the repair speed needs to be lower and the repair costs higher to keep the repair/dmg balance during combat)

With the torpedoes that are predestined to sink anchored ship from a safe distance the use of ships will be limited even more.

In reality it took some serious effort in the pirate age to sink a ship and you could cause heavy damage while it would still not sink thus the repair could cost as much as building a new ship.
But if ships dont need the current absurd protection it also would allow for exploring and trading away from your base, lively ports and seas which can hardly happen when your ship sinks to a single shot.

Of course its also a preference if you like super fast sinking of ships or more gameplay options, but i think there are many possibilities this game could offer for a lot of players. We could see a lot more of what one would expect to see in a pirate/seafaring game happening.
Maybe you could try it with one server to see the long time influence this has on how the world develops if ships are some serious thing, would be perfect for a pvp roleplay server.

Also a multiplicator for plank hp and repair speed in the .ini would be welcome so we can adjust it on our servers.

--------------------------------

It would be nice if we could move the cargo containers onto the ship deck or the deck side of the cargo bay as it looks quiet outrageous when they hang on the outside in front of the gun ports.

Thank you and keep up the good work with the regular updates that expand the game with a lot of great new stuff.

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Can we do away with everyone's least favorite aspect of the game, the incredibly stupid discovery point system used to level up. We get it you want us to go out and explore cookie cutter islands, while evading ridiculous amounts of fleets of the damn. It like crops, half of the people in other sectors refuse to talk, or they are empty, so who do I trade with? and when I find someone to trade with they don't have near the quantities I need which make my trip useless. So why not make all crops growable in all sectors. Finally it sounds like the torpedoes will be content locked like the sub, once again thanks for screwing over solo and small team players, and personal I thing ships should only be able to hold 2 torpedo launchers. Make it interesting maybe give the gun ports for fore and aft part of the ships for torpedoes only, just quit content locking stuff.

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Hooks to stop ships is not wanted. I have never seen that in ship combat of the time and I would not like to see it in this game. Even more tame is not good. People shall only be allowed to have horses no other tames, its ridiculous. A good game is not crafted by making alot of stuff like this, I am sad. This is the best game ever, I have played em all since 1999. Unfotunatly it was at its best just the weeks after release, and after that its downhill. Everything getting easier and more abundant and less fun. Work on the technical problems, but dont listen to when people want everything easier. Listening to that kills games.

I like more tames, Hooks to stop ships were commonly used back during the peak of piracy.
you've played every game to ever come out in 20 years? doubt it.

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more tames????? so stupid... there is only 2 sides of pvp in this game... ship combat… and tame combat… and thats it... no epic sword or gun fights NOTHING!! cus its not worth it cus ur shitty servers cant handle 2 companioes in the same grid withoput lagging so much its unplayable…. plz explain to me why the tames have to be meta in pvp? when i think of pirates i think epic ship,sword and gun fights... board ship with grappling hooks and brawl it out... but no the meta is riding around on a bear with a cart and flamethrower or jump around on crab! so pirat much wow

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more tames????? so stupid... there is only 2 sides of pvp in this game... ship combat… and tame combat… and thats it... no epic sword or gun fights NOTHING!! cus its not worth it cus ur shitty servers cant handle 2 companioes in the same grid withoput lagging so much its unplayable…. plz explain to me why the tames have to be meta in pvp? when i think of pirates i think epic ship,sword and gun fights... board ship with grappling hooks and brawl it out... but no the meta is riding around on a bear with a cart and flamethrower or jump around on crab! so pirat much

He got a point there. They said, Atlas should be fun. Make Melee weapons fun to use. Give them a reason to be in that game. Every weapon and armor should have their spot and purpose. Tames are op, and thats a fun killer.

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He got a point there. They said, Atlas should be fun. Make Melee weapons fun to use. Give them a reason to be in that game. Every weapon and armor should have their spot and purpose. Tames are op, and thats a fun killer.

tames are really not that op in combat when ya think about it, someone with high level armor(mythic plate) can easily kill a tame, with the melee weapon skill line, not hard to do, set traps etc and tames do die...

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I dont recommend exploding this game into an ark clone.. Taming and over burdening the population with crafting, farming. Its repetitive, and players find ways to exploit any of it they can to avoid it.

Its mainly a balance issue that needs to be fine tuned.

really find those Aimbotters, esp users because i reported the same cheaters months ago and now they are just getting banned.

Keep going towards shipwright building, and pvp should be completely different then PVE and try not to bunch the two together it puts burdens on both players.

Get back to the ship game and players like me might return, this torpedo crap and flying ships are a stupid idea.

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Holy cow. Just finished the live stream. Just over an hour long and easily took 2 hours to watch.

Please dont use twitch anymore. The lagg and jumping and buffering, oh my. Felt like watching online content 20 years ago. You tube is a far superior platform. I cant even get over how frustrating that was.

Oh and great content by the way. Super excited for everything displayed.

-CS

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you say you answer all posts, lets test that theory. So you showed some pretty neat stuff. but what about new boats? also, what about the new maps. you guys made huge comments about releasing new islands. some of us on private servers have been waiting specifically for this update. also, why not reach out to your modding community. you have people creating new boats already you could discuss with them.

What's the deal on new boats (were not mentioned) and the actual planned date of release for new islands.

Last comment, when are you going to make a "ship gate" that we can now create to protect our docked boats from someone doing a drive by with torpedos. >_>

Edited May 7, 2019 by LadyAllyKat

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tames are really not that op in combat when ya think about it, someone with high level armor(mythic plate) can easily kill a tame, with the melee weapon skill line, not hard to do, set traps etc and tames do die...

im glad u said when ya think about it.. u clearly havent been raiding much…. as soon as there is more than 80 ppl in the grid u start to lag like crazy... u cant reload ur weapons u cant hit anything with melee weapons cus every1 is bouncing around… yeah on paper tames isnt that bad... but in reality with the crap servers they are op and they shouldnt be… this is labelled as a pirate game.. yet its the game with least pirate stuff in it i have played… this should be renamed to ships and tames cus that is what is it sadly.. it have the potential to be one of the best pirate games there is... but when they insist on making tames meta it wont happen cus this shit is getting old fast...

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tames are really not that op in combat when ya think about it, someone with high level armor(mythic plate) can easily kill a tame, with the melee weapon skill line, not hard to do, set traps etc and tames do die...

LOL @Ducimus is right. Tames are super OP. I avoided them on principal. However recently I've been messing with it some because they keep adding more and more, its silly OP.

Ofc, you could just stroll over and grab your mythical plate armor that everyone has just lying around in arms reach......then ask the other player to stand still for a few minutes while you work down its HP. Don't be ridiculous. You can really love the tames and still be honest enough to lament they are a must have meta due to how incredibly OP they are.

They replace weapons, they replace you having to put points in weight, they replace melee tools, they replace any effort of combat that should have been put into Atlas instead of tames. And coming soon, they replace subs, boats and armor.

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LOL @Ducimus is right. Tames are super OP. I avoided them on principal. However recently I've been messing with it some because they keep adding more and more, its silly OP.

Ofc, you could just stroll over and grab your mythical plate armor that everyone has just lying around in arms reach......then ask the other player to stand still for a few minutes while you work down its HP. Don't be ridiculous. You can really love the tames and still be honest enough to lament they are a must have meta due to how incredibly OP they are.

They replace weapons, they replace you having to put points in weight, they replace melee tools, they replace any effort of combat that should have been put into Atlas instead of tames. And coming soon, they replace subs, boats and armor.

To say they need to be nerfed is an understatement.

I have fought mega companies in the past on pvp, and we never used tames till a certain point, and they had all master craft and higher armor, we killed them every time they tried to wipe us....with out tames....if they got into our inner town, that's when we used tames, and they did have tames attacking us, but didn't have the right ones

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I have fought mega companies in the past on pvp, and we never used tames till a certain point, and they had all master craft and higher armor, we killed them every time they tried to wipe us....with out tames....if they got into our inner town, that's when we used tames, and they did have tames attacking us, but didn't have the right ones

Setting aside the fact that megas are the absolute worst PVPrs as a general rule of thumb.

Your saying tames decided your battle? And both sides used tames? I call that meta. They would not have attacked you without tames. They are a must, in a pirate game. You won because you had tames, witch again were a must.

Take them out of the battle as devils advocate. You still needed them to farm the resources for building your base. You used them to fend off the wildlife around your base. They aren't OP because of their super battle capacity only, that would make them more balanced if that was all. Its that they are better at almost everything you do in game, which is fundamentally only 3 things, Build, Destroy, and Kill.

Its not a knock on you, so please don't take any offense, but the fact remains verified that they are OP AF.

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Setting aside the fact that megas are the absolute worst PVPrs as a general rule of thumb.

Your saying tames decided your battle? And both sides used tames? I call that meta. They would not have attacked you without tames. They are a must, in a pirate game. You won because you had tames, witch again were a must.

Take them out of the battle as devils advocate. You still needed them to farm the resources for building your base. You used them to fend off the wildlife around your base. They aren't OP because of their super battle capacity only, that would make them more balanced if that was all. Its that they are better at almost everything you do in game, which is fundamentally only 3 things, Build, Destroy, and Kill.

Its not a knock on you, so please don't take any offense, but the fact remains verified that they are OP AF.

no we won cause we used strats, we had the base set up that way, it takes more then just tames to attack a group, mortars, cannons, good armor, etc to win a fight. a company can attack with tons of tames, if they don't have a strat, they will fail

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But the torpedoes are a dangerous thing to implement.. It doesn't really fit into the pirate age, it does maybe fit with the golden age lore or something but this stuff is HOT! If it is not balanced you will only cause frustration.. And till now the game can already be very frustrating.. But losing ships every night due to torpedoes will end any motivation for those who are weaker. I would recommend to make PUCKLES able to shoot torpedoes, so you can build a solid defence against it and the cost for offense is still higher than for defense. And if some people want the offline raid they have to either invest a whole bunch of resources or come close to fuck with the crew on the cannons HARR!

So this would be a solid balance for the torpedoes, and as you already balanced the base defense (crew members mounting turrets) we will be able to handle the coming

But still... We are still waiting for parrot stands! I can't wait to put polly on a little stand to feed her with crackers instead of throwing her into a corner xD (like all other shoulder mounts)

And what you guys think about statistics? Would be VERY VERY HELPFUL to have statistics about the crew, gold consume (by Crewmembers) , mounts, etc

Thanks for the attention and reading and keep on making this a great game!

Greetings

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no we won cause we used strats, we had the base set up that way, it takes more then just tames to attack a group, mortars, cannons, good armor, etc to win a fight. a company can attack with tons of tames, if they don't have a strat, they will fail

are u actually reading what i write ? if hte servers was stable and had fine ping sure u cna easy kill tames with teamwork etc... but the problem is when the servers puke when there is 80 or more players in the grid and u cant reload weapons or hit with melee weapons thats when it becomes stupid.... yeah u can be lucky and hit them with random grenades but that is about it... else u need to counter with other tames… and its just stupid i never seen anything pirate related where the pirates had a fucking zoo on their boat cus they had to go raid some others…. this isnt ark... just stop the zootopia and give us some new ship,cannon or general weapon options and bring back real piracy not this half arsed ark clone

Edited May 7, 2019 by Ducimus

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are u actually reading what i write ? if hte servers was stable and had fine ping sure u cna easy kill tames with teamwork etc... but the problem is when the servers puke when there is 80 or more players in the grid and u cant reload weapons or hit with melee weapons thats when it becomes stupid.... yeah u can be lucky and hit them with random grenades but that is about it... else u need to counter with other tames… and its just stupid i never seen anything pirate related where the pirates had a fucking zoo on their boat cus they had to go raid some others…. this isnt ark... just stop the zootopia and give us some new ship,cannon or general weapon options and bring back real piracy not this half arsed ark clone

this was during a raid where there was over 255 people on the server, the strat still works with or with out lag

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are u actually reading what i write ? if hte servers was stable and had fine ping sure u cna easy kill tames with teamwork etc... but the problem is when the servers puke when there is 80 or more players in the grid and u cant reload weapons or hit with melee weapons thats when it becomes stupid.... yeah u can be lucky and hit them with random grenades but that is about it... else u need to counter with other tames… and its just stupid i never seen anything pirate related where the pirates had a fucking zoo on their boat cus they had to go raid some others…. this isnt ark... just stop the zootopia and give us some new ship,cannon or general weapon options and bring back real piracy not this half arsed ark clone

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Yep, I gotta agree with you on this one. The idea of a sophisticated, metal-crafted submarine is too steam-punk for me and if we are intelligent and skilled enough to build this kind of machinery, why are we still using pathetic and feeble, "wooden" boats?

Grapeshot, remove the silly submarine and please leave Steampunk crap out of this pirate game, we don't need any of it. Thank you.

Edited May 8, 2019 by vaylain

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Yep, I gotta agree with you on this one. The idea of a sophisticated, metal-crafted submarine is too steam-punk for me and if we are intelligent and skilled enough to build this kind of machinery, why are we still using pathetic and feeble, "wooden" boats?

Grapeshot, remove the silly submarine and please leave Steampunk crap out of this pirate game, we don't need any of it. Thank you.

I don’t mind the submarine in atlas personally. I think the fact the devs put the submarine behind a wall lend itself to lore pretty well. The golden age ruins are a lost advanced civilisation. Like dwemer in the elder scrolls. The whole steampunk (pirate punk, whatever ng is pretty cool. I like some fantasy aspect of the game. Other wise we just have a pirate game.i Played black wake for 100 hours and the game ended up being really predictable and kinda boring tbh.

i understand where you are coming from with your post and your concerns are valid. However, this seems to be the direction the devs are taking the game.